Disinformation groups profit from charity status - and we pay for it
Jake Johnson for Common Dreams
The analysis by the
Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and the Climate Accountability Research
Project (CARP) explains that wealthy donors are "pouring billions of
dollars" into nonprofit organizations to "advance misleading,
self-serving agendas that do irreparable harm to our planet"—all while
reaping the benefits of charitable contribution
deductions in the U.S. tax code.
"Funds directed to fossil fuel industry-friendly think tanks and policy groups help turn disinformation into accepted truth and sow doubt about science," the analysis notes. "Then, these ideas get turned into action—or, more often, inaction—by the policy brass of lawmakers and presidential administrations."
The new report highlights "two troubling examples of
this chain of influence: The Competitive Enterprise Institute, or CEI, received
$21 million in charitable contributions from 2020 to 2022; it bills itself as
'instrumental' both in blocking ratification of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and in
pressuring former President [Donald]
Trump to withdraw from the 2016 Paris agreement."
"And the Heritage Foundation received $236 million in
contributions over the same three years; this money allowed Heritage to
write Project 2025, a
policy blueprint overseen by several former Trump administration appointees,
that proposes changes to the Department of Energy and the Environmental
Protection Agency that would be disastrous for our climate," the report
adds.
IPS and CARP estimate that donors to the two right-wing organizations were able to deduct "much of" their $257 million in gifts—effectively receiving major public subsidies.
In total, the report counts 137 "climate
disinformation" nonprofits that received charitable donations between 2020
and 2022, with six of them focused "largely or entirely" on climate
issues. The 137 organizations collectively received $5.8 billion in
contributions over the three-year period examined in the analysis, which
estimates that the total sum the nonprofits spent on climate disinformation
"could range anywhere from a conservative $219 million into the billions
of dollars."
The three "climate disinformation charities" that
held the most in assets in 2022, according to the new report, were the Charles
Koch Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the Seminar Network.
Between 2020 and 2022, the climate disinformation groups
that received the most in total contributions were the Seminar Network, the
Stand Together Foundation, and the 85 Fund—an organization connected to
Federalist Society co-chair Leonard Leo.
Chuck Collins, director of IPS' Program on Inequality and a
co-author of the report, said in a statement that the analysis
"provides some much-needed transparency so that the American public can
understand the deceptive ways in which the rich seek to advance and protect
their interests."
"Based on our findings from the data sources available
to us, we are calling for fundamental transparency reforms so we can assess the
total amount of taxpayer-subsidized charitable donations flowing to climate
disinformation organizations," said Collins. "Many of these donors
have built their fortunes in energy or the banking, insurance, transportation,
and legal businesses that support the carbon-intensive industries, so they have
strong personal interests in ensuring the world's dependence on fossil fuels."
The report notes that wealthy donors have recently been
funneling billions of dollars into so-called donor-advised funds (DAFs), which
IPS and CARP describe as a kind of "charitable bank account: a donor can
donate to a personalized fund managed by a sponsoring nonprofit organization,
and take a charitable deduction for that donation right away, but the donor
then retains advisory privileges that let them recommend grants out of the fund
to whichever charities they want, on whatever timeline they want."
IPS and CARP found that the three largest sponsors of DAFs
between 2020 and 2022 were the National Philanthropic Trust, the Schwab
Charitable Fund, and DonorsTrust.
"Because DAFs have a near-complete lack of donor and
grantee reporting requirements, they allow for a high level of secrecy in
donating funds," the report observes.
Private foundations are also major funders of climate
disinformation, according to the new report, which lists the Sarah Scaife
Foundation, Searle Freedom Trust, and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation,
among others.
The report outlines a number of potential policy changes to
stem the ability of individuals and organizations with fossil fuel ties to
secretively finance climate disinformation with the help of taxpayer subsidies,
including barring private foundations from "using grants to donor-advised
funds to meet their payout requirements" and requiring DAF sponsors to
disclose "the names of all individual donors who have contributed $10,000
or more to each DAF account."
"It is high time for the American public to understand
just how much charitable money is funding climate change disinformation and to
recognize the key individuals behind this effort," the analysis says.
